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PlaNet News & Views

Posted on 1-12-2004

Silence Is Golden - And Very Rare

By Alan Marston (Photo shows a view East of Puhoi)
 
In 1980 I bought an Arch Hill property in Central Auckland for $18,500. It
was a wreck but `had potential'. The greatest asset was the neighbours,
working class types, rough and ready. I was happy and worked hard on the
house. The NW motorway nearby was noisy, I put up with because everything
else was beaut, I was happy.
 
By 1996 I wanted out, mainly because the neighbours were a whole new
breed, not rough, never ready. As far as I was concerned the city was
doomed to noise, overstatement, pollution and prices, and that is ever
more the case. Needless to say the search for a new home started, number
one criteria, out of the city and as isolated as possible from the most
uncontrollable aspect of housing, neighbours.
 
By a series of oracles and miracles I found my spot of native bush
paradise, I bought immediately and at last 8 years later have my house
down a 140 metre drive from the road. No lawn, concrete drive, no fences
and a share in 100 acres of mature native forest. And the 7 houses in the
entire valley do not constitute a problem, quite the contrary.
 
Despite my best efforts I have to ask the question: How long will it last?
The `developers' are a ravenous species with an insatiable appetite for
money which they garner from carpeting the rolling hills with tile rooves.
The bush in my valley is covenanted, I prey the Rodney CC will defend it.
I'm not hopeful, I'm 3.5km from Puhoi.
 
At Puhoi, off SH1 just north of Waiwera, there's a 63-unit residential
settlement that planners want to build on the village's eastern border. In
theory nothing will be done until a survey of what residents think of the
proposed new "hamlet" is completed. Not reassuring news.
 
Rodney District has more than 1400km of coastline, including beaches such
as Omaha and Orewa, and a multimillion-dollar motorway extension bringing
it ever-closer to Auckland, the region is being targeted by developers. A
huge residential and retail development is underway at Silverdale, with a
projected population of 9000 people and "new-generation" giant retail
stores. I drive through Silverdale on the way to Auckland, what a `site'
that development is, so crude, so lacking in soul, so ugly, so noisy and
thank God, so far away from me.
 
But not so far away is "Windmill hamlets", a clustered housing development
of 100-plus units in the lifestyle block belt at Wainui, west of
Silverdale. That's getting close, to close for comfort. I rely on the
Rodney CC to implement their plans, to defend the land, to protect my
patch! Is it going to come down to sabotaging bulldozers? Yes, I do
believe that will happen before long as those who were there first defend
themselves against latecomers. On the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, Rodney
District Council is being accused of allowing Gulf Harbour's
multimillion-dollar marina and residential development to spiral out of
control, with more and more houses squeezed on to smaller sites. Direct
action seems inevitable sooner rather than later somewhere in Auckland, it
may well be somewhere in Rodney.
 
Population growth is driving the boom. The district grew 14.6 per cent
between the 1996 census and June last year, and by 2016 another 30,000
people could be living here. Rodney's projected growth under the Regional
Growth Strategy is 168 per cent in the next 50 years, the highest for any
of Auckland's seven city and district councils. If the developers at Puhoi
think they know what residents of the historic village want, they are in
for a rude shock, says resident and unsuccessful mayoral candidate Larry
Mitchell. "This council is between a rock and a hard place," he says. "It
needs $150 million for infrastructure development - Whangaparaoa alone
needs a $60 million sewage treatment plant - but the prudent maximum level
of debt is only $100 million."
 
Puhoi is an oasis of rural tranquillity. Exotic oaks and poplars, planted
by settlers who arrived in 1863, are dotted among the flax and cabbage
trees. All this will not be spoiled by Papillon Investments' plan for a
"clustered" housing development, says planning consultant Shane Hartley.
"Development has been coming to Rodney for many years but it's coming in
droves now and in my experience, you cannot stop it," he says. Hartley is
a former Rodney council planner and one of the architects of the district
plan, which will need a change if the Papillon development is to go ahead.
 
Changing, bending, twisting, PR, lying,. no problem for developers.
Suggest that a fully-formed, 63-home development slap-bang on Puhoi's
southeastern border could be considered incongruous, and Hartley replies
that it would be better than the "ad hoc" development which has happened
already. Suddenly better than bad is good.
 
Puhoi farmer Jennie Davison says she will sell up if Papillon gets the
green light. "It's totally out of scale and totally out of context. The
number of houses exceeds the number in the village right now." Bill
Marcroft, whose lifestyle property borders Papillon's land, believes
Davison's sentiments raise another problem: "If she sells, will her land
go to another developer?"
 
Papillon bought the land about the same time Marcroft moved to Puhoi, just
as Cornerstone Group bought the 460ha Renalls farm at Waimauku a few
months after Ian Farrant moved to the small West Auckland settlement. In
the immediate Waimauku area, there are about 500 households, he says. So
Cornerstone's plans for 2300 new homes came as a shock. "Everyone expected
small blocks. If this goes through you can expect a whole lot of other
farmers to sell up."
 
Another developer plans a shopping centre with carpark and motel complex
for Waimauku village. But the new commercial centre is designed to face
the main road, SH16, with its back to the existing village. Farrant says
he is not opposed to growth per se but it has to be "strategically
planned". "Would you want to see Albany or Westgate come out to here?" he
asks. "The whole of the western corridor, Huapai-Kumeu-Waimauku, is really
at risk. The character of this area is something to be preserved; it's
something different."
 
Former Rodney deputy mayor Christine Rose, now an Auckland Regional
councillor, says Cornerstone is unlikely to get the green light at
Waimauku. But in its publicity material, the company is upbeat. Rodney
District planner Peter Vari says he is aware of development proposals at
Waimauku and Puhoi but nothing formal has been received from Cornerstone
and more information is being sought from Papillon. Rodney councillor
Wayne Walker says developers are "pushing the envelope" and tension is
escalating. "Many farms are already in separate titles so you're looking
at a landscape that is actually about to be chopped up," he says. "The
council has been doing its best to maintain the look and feel of Rodney
but there's no question it's tough. You have to ask yourself, is it
sensible to extend the motorway even further? It's not sustainable."
 
Sustainability has never got in the way of `development', it takes a
barricade of steel to do that.